Gallipoli: Remembering Lives Lost

Today, April 25, is ANZAC Day when we remember the fallen at Gallipoli during the First World War. Two BSA students were killed during the campaign (see "BSA Deaths in the First World War"): Lieutenant George Leonard Cheesman, Hampshire Regiment, fell on 10 August 1915 during the surprise attack on Chunuk Bairun, and Captain William Loring, 2nd Scottish Horse, died of his wounds on the hospital ship Devanha on 24 October 1915. Loring's brother, Captain Ernest Loring RN, also served aboard ship at Gallipoli; two further brothers, Lt.-Col. Walter Latham Loring, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and Major Charles Buxton Loring, 37th Lancers (Baluch Horse) had been killed on the Western Front in October and December 1914.

At least two other former BSA students took part in an intelligence role (see "BSA Students and the First World War: Harry Pirie-Gordon"). Lt. Commander David Hogarth RNVR, working for the Arab Bureau in Cairo, was at Gallipoli in August 1915 interrogating Turkish prisoners of war. Lt. Harry Pirie-Gordon RNVR (Magdalen College, Oxford, like Hogarth) arrived at Gallipoli at the start of the landings but was evacuated on health grounds ('ptomaine poisoning') in May. He returned in the autumn and worked with Captain Ian Smith of the Royal Engineers (his former colleague from 1911-12 when they surveyed the area round the port of Alexandretta) on interrogation. Among the prisoners was Sharif Muhammad al Faruqi, an officer of the Ottoman army, who was interviewed in October 1915. Faruqi was recruited for the Arab Bureau operating as ‘G’, and serving as a go-between for Cairo and the Sharif of Mecca.

Students at the British School at Athens (1886-1914)

Gill, D. W. J. 2008. Students at the British School at Athens (1886-1914). Swansea: Ostraka Press.

ISBN 978-0-9558498-0-0.
Cost: £5.95.

72 pages, 6" x 9", perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-colour exterior ink.

This volume provides indexes for more than 130 students admitted to the British School at Athens from its establishment in 1886 to the outbreak of the First World War. There is a short introductory essay with bibliography.

Contents

A. Introduction

B. School Backgrounds

C. Cambridge Colleges

D. Oxford Colleges

E. Universities and Educational Establishments in England

F. Universities and Educational Establishments in Scotland

G. University and Educational Establishments in Ireland

H. Universities and Educational Establishments Outside Great Britain

I. Fellowships at Cambridge Colleges

J. Fellowships at Oxford Colleges

K. Students by Year of Admission at the BSA

L. Directors and Students Listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)

M. Alphabetical List of Students

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The Ptolemaic Base of Arsinoe-Methana

An overview of the Ptolemaic occupation of the Methana peninsula in the Peloponnese has now appeared. Discussion includes the fortified naval base on the Nissaki as well as the topographical features of the isthmus connecting the peninsula with the Troezenia (and featuring in a number of border disputes known from inscriptions recovered from Epidauros). Methana, renamed Arsinoe, was one of a series of Ptolemaic bases in the Aegean.

This study builds on the earlier BSA / Liverpool University survey of the peninsula.

Reference
Gill, D. W. J. 2007. "Arsinoe in the Peloponnese: the Ptolemaic base on the Methana peninsula." In Egyptian Stories: a British Egyptological tribute to Alan B. Lloyd, edited by T. Schneider and K. Szpakowska, pp. 87-110. Alter Orient und Altes Testament, vol. 347. Munster: Ugarit-Verlag. [Publisher]

Image
The fortified naval base on the Nissaki. © David Gill.

'Maghoula-hunting' in Thessaly

Excavations by the Greek Archaeological Service had drawn attention to the potential of Thessaly.

Alan J.B. Wace and A.W. Van Buren (of the American Academy at Rome) invesitigated the Magnesian peninsula in April 1905. They identified a possible site for excavation at Kato Georgi near Cape Sopias; this site, designated as Theotokou, was excavated by Wace and John P. Droop in 1907.

Wace and Droop had hoped to find remains of a Doric temple but were disappointed. They went 'maghoula-hunting' and identified a prehistoric mound at Zerelia near Almyros; this was excavated in 1908, with Maurice S. Thompson joining the team.

Wace and Thompson were joined in 1909 by T. Eric Peet. They worked on two sites: Palaeomylos near Lianokladi, in the Spercheios Valley, and Tzani Maghoula near Sophades. This work suggested to them that there were no clear links between the cultures of the Aegean and Central Europe.

Wace and Thompson excavated at Tsangli in 1910. Wynfrid Duckworth, who had worked with the BSA at Palaikastro, examined a skull found in one of the Neolithic levels. A second site was excavated at Rachmani, to the north-west of Larisa.

References
Bosanquet, R. C. 1902. "Thessaly. Prehistoric villages in Thessaly." Man 2: 106-07. [JSTOR]
Wace, A. J. B. 1906. "The topography of Pelion and Magnesia." Journal of Hellenic Studies 26: 143-68. [JSTOR]
—. 1908. "Topography of Pelion and Magnesia - Addenda." Journal of Hellenic Studies 28: 337. [JSTOR]
Wace, A. J. B., and J. P. Droop. 1906/07. "Excavations at Theotokou, Thessaly." Annual of the British School at Athens 13: 308-27.
Wace, A. J. B., J. P. Droop, and M. S. Thompson. 1907/08. "Excavations at Zerélia, Thessaly." Annual of the British School at Athens 14: 197-223.
Peet, T. E., A. J. B. Wace, and M. S. Thompson. 1908. "The connection of the Aegean civilization with Central Europe." Classical Review 22: 233-38. [JSTOR]
Vassits, M. M. 1907/08. "South-eastern elements in the pre-historic civilization of Servia." Annual of the British School at Athens 14: 319-42.
Thompson, M. S., and A. J. B. Wace. 1909. "The connection of the Aegean culture with Servia." Classical Review 23: 209-12. [JSTOR]
Wace, A. J. B., and M. S. Thompson. 1910. "Excavations in Thessaly, 1910." Man 10: 159-60. [JSTOR]
Duckworth, W. L. H. 1911. "35. Report on a Human Skull from Thessaly (Now in the Cambridge University Anatomical Museum)." Man 11: 49-50. [JSTOR]
Wace, A. J. B., and M. S. Thompson. 1911. "The distribution of early civilization in northern Greece." Geographical Journal 37: 631-36. [JSTOR]
Wace, A. J. B., and M. S. Thompson. 1912. Prehistoric Thessaly: being some account of recent excavations and explorations in north-eastern Greece from Lake Kopais to the borders of Macedonia. Cambridge archaeological and ethnological series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Woodward, A. M. 1913. "Inscriptions from Thessaly and Macedonia." Journal of Hellenic Studies 33: 313-46. [JSTOR]

Image
Skull from Neolithic layer at Tsangli.

Piet de Jong: Architect and Archaeological Illustrator

Piet de Jong (1887-1967) is described in this new collection of his work as “one of the great archaeological illustrators of the 20th century” (Papadopoulos 2007: xix). Although the focus is on the American work in the Athenian agora, de Jong started his association with the British School at Athens on Alan J.B. Wace's excavations at Mycenae. He then worked with Sir Arthur Evans on Crete, Arthur M. Woodward at Sparta, and Humfry G.G. Payne at Perachora (see the caricatures in Hood 1998). De Jong also designed extensions to the BSA Hostel and Library.

• Review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (David W.J. Gill)
• Greek edition
  

Reference
Hood, R. 1998. Faces of archaeology in Greece: caricatures by Piet de Jong. Oxford: Leopard's Head Press. [Worldcat]
Papadopoulos, J. K. Editor. 2007. The art of antiquity: Piet de Jong and the Athenian Agora. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. [Worldcat]

Directors: the Transition from Dawkins to Wace

Richard M. Dawkins was due to complete his term of office as director at the end of September 1913. However in this was extended for an additional year (in spite of the suggestion in Helen Waterhouse that his term of office came to an end in 1913). Alan J.B. Wace was offered the directorship in the autumn of 1913, to start from October 1914.

Dawkins felt he could resign due to the death of his mother's cousin, the historian John Andrew Doyle (1844-1907). Dawkins inherited Doyle's two houses in Wales: Plas Dulas in Denbighshire and Pendarren near Crickhowell. Dawkins' mother, Mary Louisa, was a granddaughter of Sir John Easthope (1784-1865).

One of Dawkins' neighbours in Crickhowell was Harry Pirie-Gordon who was admitted as a student in 1908.

Reference
Waterhouse, H. 1986. The British School at Athens: the first hundred years. British School at Athens supplementary volume, vol. 19. London: Thames & Hudson.

Cretan Exploration Fund: Anthropology

Human and animal remains from excavations of the Cretan Exploration Fund were send to Professor William Boyd Dawkins (1837-1929) of Manchester University. Boyd Dawkins was a friend of Evans and was invited to Knossos. He had worked on cave deposits in England, notably Wookey Hole and Cresswell Crags, and was thus a natural choice to advise Hogarth for the interpretation of animal remains from the Dictaean Cave. He also made comments on the skulls found during Hogarth's excavations at Kato Zakro.

Bosanquet wrote about the human remains from Palaikastro:

Old C---'s [presumably Charles Comyn] fondness for skulls is notorious; to-day he packed 13 of them in two large mule-paniers and sent them off to the Museum at Candia, hoping they may arrive there in time to be measured and reported on by Body-Dawkins. B.-D. is the author of a sporting book on 'Cave-hunting,' and what he doesn't know about bones isn't worth knowing. Also he's a pal of Evans', and is coming to Cnossos to stay with E. [April 21, 1902]

The following season Wynfrid L.H. Duckworth, Cambridge university lecturer in physical anthropology, joined the team to work on the remains found in the ossuaries. As he was a qualified medical doctor (St Bartholomew's Hospital in London) he was able to meet the medical needs of the local community.

Duckworth has a lot of doctoring to do and is very good and patient. Our drugs, sufficient for my modest practice, aren't enough for his, but that's just as well, for we have no business to take the place of the local doctors and chemists by a too wholesale distribution of medicines. [March 28, 1903]

Charles H. Hawes of Trinity College, Cambridge, joined the project in 1905 to continue this work.

References
Boyd Dawkins, W. 1900/01. "Skulls from cave burials at Zakro." Annual of the British School at Athens 7: 150-56. [See comment by J.L. Myres, Man 2 [1902] 122-23.]
Boyd Dawkins, W. 1902. "Remains of animals found in the Dictaean Cave in 1901." Man 2: 162-65. [JSTOR]
Duckworth, W. L. H. 1902/03a. "Excavations at Palaikastro. II. § 11. Human remains at Hagios Nikolaos." Annual of the British School at Athens 9: 344-50.
—. 1902/03b. "Excavations at Palaikastro. II. § 12. Ossuaries at Roussolakkos." Annual of the British School at Athens 9: 350-55.
Hawes, C. H. 1904/05. "Excavations at Palaikastro. IV. § 7. Larnax burials at Sarandari." Annual of the British School at Athens 11: 293-97.

Image
Skull from Zakro.

Obituary: Nicolas Coldstream (1927-2008)

Nicolas Coldstream, best known for his work on Early Iron Age Greece, died on March 21, 2008. He was born on March 30, 1927, at Lahore, India, and was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. He was temporary assistant keeper in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum (1956-57), and then Macmillan Student at the BSA (1957-60). In 1960 he was appointed lecturer at Bedford College, University of London, promoted reader (1966), and subsequently professor of Aegean Archaeology (1975). He was elected Yates Professor of Classical Archaeology at University College London in 1983 (a position he held until his retirement in 1992).

Coldstream edited the Annual of the British School at Athens (1968-73) and was chair of the Managing Committee (1987-91).

• Daily Telegraph, April 4, 2008.
• The Times, April 9, 2008.
• The Independent, April 15, 2008 (by Gerald Cadogan)
  

Melos: the Hall of the Mystae

In April 1896 Robert Carr Bosanquet described to his sister Caroline the excavations at 'the Hall of the Mystae' on Melos.

A few days later we found a statue, headless alas, lying on its back on the mosaic pavement ...It represents a hierophant ... of Dionysos, probably, and was set up by the Mystae or Initiates. The mosaic is an unusually large one, some 40 feet in length, and 10 feet wide, and on the whole well preserved. Yesterday we finished clearing away the stone dykes and soil that overlay the upper end and were overwhelmed by the beauty of the upper compartment: it has a vine in each corner whose branches spread over the field: among them are birds of gorgeous plumage, pheasants and peacocks, at one side a deer or goat lying down. The colouring is very rich and the design good. It is probably the best mosaic that has been discovered in Greece. I am anxious to arrange for its permanent preservation and am wiring to Cecil Smith, whom I suppose to be in Athens, to that effect. He has left me in charge for over 3 weeks and I have only heard from him once, so I am anxiously awaiting his coming.

The drawing was made by Charles R.R. Clark, the excavation's architect.

Bibliography
Bosanquet, R. C. 1898. "Excavations of the British School at Melos. The Hall of the Mystae." Journal of Hellenic Studies 18: 60-80, pls. i-iii.

David Hogarth on Melos

David Hogarth had excavated at Old Paphos with the Cyprus Exploration Fund (1888) and then at Koptos in Egypt with Flinders Petrie (1894). He then joined the Egypt Exploration Fund's excavation at Deir-el-Bahari (1894), before working at Alexandria with E.F. Benson (1895), a BSA student, and then the Faiyum (1895-96).

Petrie had been the main influence on Hogarth when he went to Phylakopi on Melos to direct the BSA's excavations there. He noted:

The workmen were all native Melians, a singularly honest and industrious lot as compared with many that I have had to do with in excavation work, but possessing little experience and not conspicuous intelligence. Consequently, while they were little likely to steal, they needed constant watching and directing; and I found it not advisable to introduce among them methods that, following Mr. Petrie, I had used from time to time in Egypt, under which the men are left very much to themselves. For instance, payment by cubic metre of earth excavated, which I had contemplated introducing in order not to have to "drive" the gangs, proved not feasible in view of the large quantity of valuable pottery which the soil everywhere contained. It would have been necessary to counteract the tendency to haste, which all metre work induces, by paying a price for countless sherds which up to then had had no money value in the island. Both the disbursement would have been too great for our funds, and an unfortunate precedent would have been introduced to disturb the Aracadian simplicity of the Melians.

Bibliography
Hogarth, D. G. 1897/98. "Excavations in Melos 1898. I. The season's work." Annual of the British School at Athens 4: 1-16.

Francis Haverfield and Robert Carr Bosanquet

Phil Freeman was written a wonderfully detailed study of Francis Haverfield (1860-1919). In the section on Haverfield's 'associates', Freeman notes the strong link with Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935), of Rock Hall, near Alnwick, Northumberland. Apart from being Director of the BSA, Bosanquet excavated at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall, and later in Wales when he held the chair of classical archaeology at Liverpool.

Freeman notes the close link between the two (especially over the work in Wales) but comments (p. 414):

How and when Bosanquet came into contact with Haverfield again is not known. ... their association has to go back to Haverfield's work around Hadrian's Wall, where Bosanquet was born and later farmed.

The answer probably lies in Thomas Hodgkin (1831-1913) who had close links with Haverfield through the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. Both were involved with the excavations at Corbridge (along with Haverfield's student Leonard Cheesman (1884-1915), who was subsequently admitted to the BSA).

In July 1902 Bosanquet married Ellen Sophia (1875-1965), Hodgkin's daughter, who had read modern history at Somerville College, Oxford. She recalled her frequent visits to Hadrian's Wall as a child:

From Chollerford you could start with the Roman Camp at Chesters and go to all the other camps along the Wall, especially dear Borcovicus (Housesteads). We went on this drive so often that Chapman said the horses drew up of their own accord when we came to the right halt for a camp or a view. And so even as children we became familiar with theories of vallum and milecastles.

The Hodgkins lived in rural Northumberland first at Bamburgh, and then at Barmoor Castle. Ellen mentioned the Bosanquets at social functions. Indeed, around 1892, she remembered meeting Bosanquet, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, on a walking-tour of the Wall with Ellen's brother Edward (also at Trinity).

Tellingly Ellen refers to Bosanquet's Oxford 'cronies' (in the autumn of 1902) but does not identify them. One was likely to have been Haverfield.

Bibliography
Bosanquet, E. S. n.d. Late harvest: memories, letters and poems. London: Chameleon Press.
Bosanquet, R. C. 1904. "Excavations on the line of the Roman Wall in Northumberland. 1: The Roman camp at Housesteads." Archaeologia Aeliana 25: 193-300.
Bosanquet, R. C. 1920. "Francis John Haverfield, F.S.A., a vice-president." Archaeologia Aeliana 17: 137-43.
Freeman, P. W. M. 2007. The best training ground for archaeologists: Francis Haverfield and the invention of Romano-British archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow. [Worldcat]